Volga Shipping Company completed a project to implement a budgeting system based on Optimacros

2024: Launch of Optimacros-based budgeting and management reporting system

The Volga Shipping Company, together with the team of the EPM KORUS Consulting department, introduced and put into commercial operation a budgeting and management reporting system based on Optimacros in 7.5 months. The selected design approach made it possible to optimize the project terms by almost 2 times relative to the standard deadlines for the implementation of models that are similar in complexity. This was announced on April 25, 2024 by KORUS Consulting.

As reported, the prerequisite for the implementation of the system was the need to move from manual preparation of budgets and reporting Excel to better and modern tools. To do this, the Volga Shipping Company decided to introduce a system that will reduce labor costs and the timing of the budget campaign, as well as the process of preparing management reporting. In addition, the system was supposed to provide the necessary level of detail data to promptly respond to the challenges of the modern transportation market, including adjusting current plans at all levels of company management. The updated product was developed with the help of the KORUS Consulting team, and the solution itself was called "UMA" ("smart analytics"). It is important for Volga Shipping Company to monitor financial the indicators in terms of flights for each ship. To do this, it is necessary to correctly form a fleet layout matrix that allows you to effectively use the available fleet resource depending on the type of cargo and the route of the ship, as well as correctly take into account all elements of the ship's life cycle and the fleet repair program. In addition, it is necessary to form and take into account the distribution of conditionally fixed and operating costs, including the calculation of fuel requirements, the formation of personnel costs and many other costs of the company.

At the entrance to the project, it was decided to divide the development of the system into 2 parts. In 2.5 months, the starting MVP model was put into commercial operation, which made it possible to immediately start planning in the system. Further work on the creation of methodology and design of the system was carried out in parallel. Thanks to this approach, in 5 months the teams of the Volga Shipping Company and KORUS Consulting implemented a fully functional model of budget management and management reporting, including models of factor analysis and forecasting.

The developed system includes 5 submodels of planning and reporting, up to 45 analytical slices, more than 3000 calculated indicators, more than 400 macro scripts, more than 350 forms of input, loading and reports, more than 10 threads integrations and 40 navigational dashboards. All this will allow the company to plan and track in detail the financial results and effectiveness of each individual vessel, as well as ship designs, and to carry out the necessary operational adjustments to plans in a timely manner. The quality of the developed architectural solution for the UMA system is confirmed by a technical audit by the Optimacros vendor.

A large number of users who participated in the implementation project are already involved in the planning process based on the updated system. The management of the company involves all participants who influence the financial result in the work with the product, which will optimize the coordination of the planning process and build more balanced and verified plans at all levels of management.

With the help of the updated system, the business managed to reduce the time of the budget campaign to 2 weeks instead of 4, as well as optimize the speed of reporting, the time for collecting and processing actual data from sources by almost half. This made it possible to redistribute the time of specialists engaged in routine operations to solve more important strategic tasks.

Volga Shipping Company plans to develop and enrich the system. In the near future, experts will calculate the fleet layout using an optimizer, consolidate planned and actual reporting by group of companies and Extension of the Personnel module functionality.

Management reporting and budgeting systems are the basis for business transformation. Therefore, the UMA project was critical for our company. Already at the current stage of its implementation, many of our expectations were met: we optimized not only labor costs and deadlines for the formation of management reporting, but also the company's limit costs by 5%. The monetary effect of the implementation of the system turned out to be one and a half times higher than we planned. And this is far from a complete list. Such results were achieved primarily due to the high level of involvement of the team of the financial unit of the Volga Shipping Company and our partners. emphasized Mikhail Bibnev, Deputy General Director for Finance and Economics of Volga Shipping Company

The direction of cargo transportation by water transport has deep specifics: for example, the calendar of the fleet for the year should take into account the day-by-day status of each vessel, and the repair schedules of ships of the river fleet (RSF) depend on the period of internavigation sludge. This requires non-standard approaches to the operational planning system. During the project, we managed to comprehensively immerse ourselves in the shipping business, understand and learn how to manage factors that directly affect the effectiveness of planning and financial results - from the matrix of fleet alignment to economic and geopolitical factors. noted Yuri Orlyansky, Director of the Department of ERM "KORUS Consulting"

We are glad to congratulate our colleagues on the completion of the project and be involved in achieving the result in such a short time. This is made possible by the flexible implementation methodology chosen, supported by the Optimacros platform capabilities. Validation of architectural solutions has strengthened confidence in the final result when scaling the MVP model. The efficiency of practical implementation was achieved thanks to many years of proven expertise in automating the budgeting processes of the team of the ERM KORUS Consulting department, as well as the involvement of key experts and business sponsors from the Volga Shipping Company in the project. commented Maxim Shilov, commercial director of Optimacros

2023: Creation of a budgeting and management reporting system

The shipping company Volga Shipping Company and Korus Consulting Group of Companies launched the MVP model of the budgeting and management reporting system into commercial operation in 2 months. The solution is implemented on the basis of the Russian Optimacros platform. Corus Consulting announced this on November 20, 2023.

The system was called "UMA" (smart analytics) and its own avatar (visual image) within the company. This solution is one of the priority projects of the Volga Shipping Company in the field of automation and digitalization of data. The system will allow you to plan costs for each of several hundred vessels, track its status during each day of the calendar year, as well as balance the production time of the vessel with the schedule of repairs and sediments. And their own name and avatar will strengthen the motivation of employees to work in the new system.

The company wanted to abandon the manual process of preparing management reporting in Excel, which took a lot of time for employees. In addition, it was important to obtain a convenient tool for deep detailing of data and making informed management decisions in the face of rapidly changing external factors.

In the future, UMA will help control current budgets, carry out preventive budget control and form a fleet alignment matrix. The system will allow distributing the production load depending on the type and route of the vessel to increase the margin of transportation, as well as accumulate the necessary information to assess the effectiveness of major repairs of ships.

The UMA project declared a number of large-scale tasks, therefore, for the convenience of implementation, it was logically divided into 2 parts. The first stage is the creation of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), which includes the main forms and analysts of the future system. At the second stage, specialists will form a target model - it is planned that the work will be completed in early 2024. The model will consist of a full-fledged budgeting system, rolling forecasting and the formation of the company's actual management reports. The project team plans to supplement UMU with other options.

In a volatile environment, there is a need to quickly make decisions based on operational and reliable data. UMA will allow us to implement key tasks related to budget planning. We are not introducing a traditional planning system, but a full-fledged tool to increase business profitability, "said Mikhail Bibnev, director of finance and economics at Volga Shipping Company.

It is very valuable for us when the customer is "ready" for the project and is at such a level of maturity at which he realizes the need for our product at this stage of the company's development. The Volga Shipping Company team consists of professionals who communicate with our team in the same language. The company's approach to the project is respected - they understand the final goal and are charged to come to the result. Such synergy allows us to make this project qualitatively in a fairly short time, "said Yuri Orlyansky, Director of the ERM KORUS Consulting Department.